Orwell Wheelers 2015 Club League Round 17: Mondello Crit 1 hour + 2 laps. Club Road Race Championship.

Long Story Short

• Had Gastroenteritis for two and a half days before the race,
• Not many people turned up, so it was Limit and Semi-Limit being chased by Scratch and Semi-Scratch,
• Did a fair bit of work,
• All the years of playing F1 games on the Playstation and Gamecube really payed off through two of the corners,
• Made an idiotic sprint before the catch,
• Lasted 58 minutes before getting dropped,
• Seen the finish,
• Well done to Conor and Helen, for winning their respective categories.

View the race on Strava: Orwell Wheelers 2015 Club League Round 17: Mondello 1hr+2laps. Limits vs. Scratches. Dropped after 58mins.

Strava Flybys Replay

The Strava Flybys Replay.

I enabled;

• Myself, for obvious reasons (token ginger),
• Eoin, as he started with the combined Limits groups and finished with the main group,
• Vladis, as he started with the combined Scratch groups and finished third.

Short Story Long

Build-up

Went to Kerry at the weekend, reckon I picked up some bacteria infection from a Chicken Pizza, Water or some Horse Shit on the Gap of Dunloe. Tallaght, Tuesday 21st of July, at 14:00, I was sitting at my desk contemplating the fate of the fly that was in my car in Tralee which I transported to Dublin, where was he now? Then I noticed that my stomach was in extreme distress. It was rock solid and really bloated. I was visiting the bathroom every 30 minutes. My commute home is 29 minutes, so this might be problematic, if some idiot decided to crash on the M50. Made it home just in time. Tried to go out for some pre-race efforts the next evening, stomach felt fine until I got to the garage on the Dublin side of Enniskerry.

A couple more nights and days where I wondered if Joy Division had written "Day of the Lords" about me; "...Nights full of bloodsport and pain... Where will it end?". Unable to eat much food, sleep long or trust a fart, this was now my reality. Just like every kid who stepped on a land mine and lived to face the hospital bills, what had I done to deserve this? I went to the chemist the next day and got some Pro-Biotics to combat the bacteria. I was also told to "eat small meals". The Yoga pose "Wind Remover", probably has some fancy name, came in really handy, thanks Sinead :P

Pre-Race

So there I was lying on the couch, bike looking sad on the balcony. What would, my childhood hero, Bill Cosby do?

Zippidy Zoo Zoo, Zoom around on the Biiicycle, then do do doo the Quaaludes.

Suck on them there pearls of wisdom, Plato, you hack. Bill, channelling his inner Freud, was right. I sipped down a slight overdose of the probiotic drink and packed two Caffeine Gels. I got everything ready and ventured to Mondello. I had only eaten 6 slices of toast and a few oven chips during the day.

I was the second person to arrive, I think the other guy saluted me, but I ran straight to the bathroom. Mondello have excellent toilet facilities. I unpacked the bike and went for a slow warmup ride. There was lots of little rabbits on the track. They were very scared of my Pedal Powered Panda. They had no need to be afraid at that stage, I wasn't going to get into Al Pacino mode for another 15 minutes. I went back to the car and went through my stretching routine. Then went to do my warm-up.

I ate the bar and consumed the two caffeine gels. I miscalculated the start time and instead of 10 minutes to recover from the warm-up, I had 40. I avoid the coffee in the office, and I'm pretty susceptible to caffeine. I spun around the carpark, staying close to the bathroom. I aided with Garrett's wheel conundrum, which stumped both he and the good doctor. Only four Limit riders signed on, six Semi-Limit bros. So it was decided to only have two groups. Team Limit would have a four minute head start over Team Scratch. I was feeling pretty confident, buoyed by Team Scratch's Stephen remembering how he was "dropped like a hot spud" at the last running of this circuit.

This was a Club Championship Race, we had enough number for a male race, but one short for the women's race. Which sucked because, spoiler alert, Helen and Aideen were mixing it with the big boys at the end.

Race

Team Limit, I was outside the barrier. Photo by Eugène.

We were off, I thought I was in a great position, but my foot wouldn't clip in. Straight down the back. I chilled out down there for a lap, and let my legs warm up, as they felt a bit wooden after sitting there for 40 minutes. There was a very narrow line taken into the third-last and last corners. I'd position myself on the outside for these and get the best line, where I could pedal as much as possible. As Dick said in the Corkagh Park Racing Intro session, "There should not be any freehubs sounding".

I moved up a bit on the straights, and was in perfect position to execute this plan the next time through that corner. I made up maybe ten positions there and bullied my way on to a wheel, Judah Ben-Hur style. This presented a new problem, as I was on the outside for the third last corner and on the inside for the last one. They were all taking this corner with the "as the crow flies" enthusiasm that I did on the Sega Megadrive 2, Christmas morning 1998. New plan, ping off the front every time through the third last corner and take the widest line through the last corner and hold a great position up the main straight. This pattern would continue for a long time.

Myself and Dan tried a little escape, but I ran out of steam, after tapping out my heart at 184bpm, and took a break down the back. Lots of people were putting in work on the front, notably Romano, Garrett, Eoin and JB. I was taking a few hard turns too. The Caffeine had flooded my senses and I was just riding having fun, completely forgetting my goal to finish with the front group.

Team Scratch, quaking in their aero shoe covers at the thought of reeling in the four minute gap. Photo by Eugène.

We were getting update on the time difference to Scratch group. They were taking about 30 seconds out of us per lap. When it got to 90 seconds, the guy on the Canyon called for the pace to be upped to 40km/h. But that didn't stem flow. We were way past fingers in dykes.

I was calling (read: shouting) for the up-and-overs to continue. My shouting skills were honed through years of helping my Dad on the farm with my brothers. Dan pinged off the front. I followed him, but got caught in nomansland after exploding. Two corners later I heard "on your left". Johnny Scratch was carving through my beloved Team Limit. 54 minutes had elapsed until the catch was made. Now it was squeaky bum time. I was still gassed from the failed bridging attempt to Dan. So I was recovering down the back. I hung in there for one lap, then...

Turn one, I was behind Ciara. Time froze. There was one last adenosine sized drop of caffeine in my system, I used it to deduce that my race was about to end. Going full SherLuke Homes (Robert Downey Jr. version), I noticed that her chain was too far down the block. She would need shift down, but that would require pedal strokes, pedal strokes she didn't have. We were on the inside of the corner, if she pedaled, she would clip the ground and cause a crash. I would need to come up the inside and close the widening gap into a headwind. Time resumed and like an OK-GO music video, the dominoes fell one by one. Game Over.

Sure I chased, and I chased hard. But I ended up exploding all over the track, think Richie Porte in the 2014 Tour De France.

I pulled up beside Ciara, and explained how we were dropped. That she needed to choose the gear to spin the shit out of to exit the corner before coasting into the corner. I gave her a demo and put about 15 meters into her using my Dr. Ferrari inspired method. Then she gave me a tow around the track and I pulled into the pits to retire and watch the finish.

Post-Race

Helen from Aideen and Ciara, Conor from Brian G and Vladis. Photo by Eugène.

My race ended prematurely, so I watched the Sprint finish. Fun times! Then my stomach cramped and I quickly exchanged my footwear, threw the bike in the back of the car and made a beeline for the toilets. Hitler wouldn't have been forced to resign, and move to South America, due to the large gas bill, if he had been in that cubicle with me.

I drove home pretty fast and ate my usual post race pizza. Only remembering at the last bite that the lady in the chemist had told me to "eat small meals", suffice to say then next 12 hours were excruciating. My anus was not this sore since the drive home from the Wicklow 200.

Power Curve-wise, I was no where near any of the numbers I recorded during this year. I spent 13.5 minutes in Z6 and Z7 combined and 25 minutes above Z4, so it was a pretty good workout. Heart rate-wise I spent 52 minutes above Z4.

I was disappointed that I didn't finished with the front group, but with the illness I think it was a fair result. Had I hid in the bunch and not done any work, then got dropped, I'd be pretty upset.

What Was Learned

• Bully my way onto wheels when Johnny Scratch is putting the hammer down,
• Don't race like an idiot,
• Don't eat a full pizza when you have a messed up digestive system.